Max Jacob, exhibition [electronic resource] : Dec. 15, 1923-Jan. 5, 1924

EXHIBITION OF

PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS

BY

MAX JACOB

DECEMBER 15, 1923 — JANUARY 5, 1924

AT THE GALLERIES OF

JOSEPH BRUMMER

43 EAST FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET
NEW YORK

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EXHIBITION OF

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PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS

MAX JACOB

DECEMBER 15, 1923 — JANUARY 5, 1924

AT THE GALLERIES OF

JOSEPH BRUMMER

43 EAST FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET
NEW YORK

187

jHE work of Max Jacob is a page torn from
the history of latter-day Paris, one of the
most unexpected, the most faithful and
intense pages of the record which seemed so complete
in the art of Constantin Guys, of Degas and of
Toulouse-Lautrec but which is corroborated and added
to by the apparition as a painter of this man who
had previously been known only as one of the finest
poets and critics of the Paris of his time.

We all knew him — or thought we did — this fan-
tastic Bohemian always ready to defend new talent
with his generous pen, to share his few sous (when he
had any) with one poorer than himself, unashamed to
accept a dinner or a franc (which often brought a
delightful poem by way of acknowledgment), singing
and telling stories with the wittiest, this Breton of
Quimper who kept the cult of his native province as a
high and pure thing while the life of Paris seethed
about him, even as the most evil and ugly things of
that life — and he knew them well — did not touch the
purity of his art. They were material for that art, as
they were in the case of Toulouse-Lautrec, when that
admirable draftsman, a few years his senior, trans-
muted the vice of the underworld they frequented into
the clear and aristocratic works which have made his
fame.

One day, there appeared the announcement that
Max Jacob was to give an exhibition of his paintings.
‘^Anch’ io son pittore” he said once more, but Cor-
reggio was already a painter of repute when he uttered
the well known phrase, while Max Jacob, when he
published his ^^Saint-Matorel,” had left its illustrating
to his young friend Picasso, and another of his books
had appeared with the drawings of his young friend

Derain. And so Paris decided not to be fooled and,
thinking of the line of one of his poems in which he
so well describes himself as the “one who brings gaiety
to all,” promised itself one more laugh with its wild
foster-son. But when the pictures were shown, Paris
was too wise to laugh, for it saw at once that the talent
which Max Jacob had been developing in silence (for
many years, as it turned out) was one to compare with
that of the most poignant expressors of its life. The
magic world of the theatre was here — and with how
French a style; here were the glamor of the silvery
streets — rendered with a sense of the quality of water
color not less fine than that of Jongkind; and always
there were the men and women, with their character
seized instantly and turned into rhythm by a line com-
parable with that of Guys, while the accenting touches
of rose and green and blue recalled those which flicker
and sparkle in the aquarelles of Manet. Above all
questions of the unexpected technical brilliance of this
art, stood its beautiful sincerity, a flower-like fineness
that Paris knows how to recognize and to love as one
of the identifying signs of its true artists.

And now this art has become a thing of the past,
for though Max Jacob still lives, he has shut his ears
to the world which drew from him these spontaneous
and intimate expressions. Remorseful over his part
in the world, he has entered a monastery, cutting him-
self off from everything that is not religious study and
contemplation. He has plunged into his new existence
with the same intensity with which he lived the life of
the Paris of his youth and with which he carried it
into his pictures.

Joseph Brummer

MAX JACOB

1 Portrait de Max Jacob par lui-meme

2 Au Theatre

3 Place de I’Opera /

4 Le Bouquet

5 Vue de Quimper

6 Place de la Bastille

7 Le Taxi Rouge

8 Amazons et Cavaliers

9 Le Marchand de Marrons

10 Au Cirque Medrano

11 Americain et Marchande de Fleurs

12 Le Taxi

13 Le Modele

I

i.

14 Scene de Thetoe

15 Vue de Quimper

16 Alice au Bois

17 Le Pont

18 Coraliers au Bois

19 Tete

20 Paysage

21 La Femme de Lettres

22 La Baraque de Lutteus a la

Fete de Montmartre

23 Au Theatre

24 Dans la Rue

25 Au Theatre

26 Un Coin de la Butte-Montmartre

27 Terrassee de Cafe

28

Au Theatre

29

Notre-Dame et La Cite

30

Le Gargon de Cafe

31

Personnage de la Comedie de

Moliere

32

Personnage de la Comedie de

Moliere

33

Personnage de la Comedie de

Moliere

34

Au Theatre

35

Sene de Cafe-Concert

36

Le VieiUard

37

Au Theatre

38

Nijinsky le Danseur

MODIGLIANI

39 Portrait de Max Jacob

JOSEPH BRUMMER

WORKS OF ART

EGYPTIAN, GREEK, ROMAN
BYZANTINE AND GOTHIC
SCULPTURES

TEXTILES AND TAPESTRIES
PAINTINGS

43 EAST FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET

NEW YORK

203 BIS BOULEVARD ST. GERMAIN
PARIS